Internet addiction disorder (IAD) means pathological use Internet that results in the impairment on familial, academic, social, and occupational functions. Previous IADs’ attentional bias studies more focused on dependence level, but ignored activity type and inhibitory ability. The current study examined whether activity type and dependence level can affect the IADs’ attentional bias after controlling for their inhibitory abilities. We recruited participants engaging in Counter Strike (CS) and Facebook (FB). According to dependence level and type activity, all participants were divided into four groups: CS IADs, FB IADs, CS non-IADs and FB non-IADs. Each participant had to complete the standard Stroop task (to assess inhibitory ability) and the addiction Stroop task (to assess attentional bias) in sequence. In the addiction Stroop task, the CS IADs showed significantly longer reaction time to CS-pictures than the FB IADs; the FB IADs had greatly longer reaction time to FB pictures than to other pictures. The findings suggested that the IADs exhibited activity-specific attentional bias. On the other hand, in the standard Stroop task, the IADs revealed longer naming latencies than the non-IADs. The findings indicated that IAD had dysfunction in inhibitory ability. In conclusion, both activity type and dependence level can affect IADs’ attentional bias after controlling for inhibitory ability. Both dependence level and type activity play critical role for IAD development.
